Kenosha delayed police bodycams for years
IOWA CITY, Iowa – City and law enforcement leaders in Kenosha, Wisconsin, unanimously endorsed the use of body cameras in 2017 as a way to increase police accountability and collect evidence at scenes of domestic violence, among other benefits.
Since then, they have balked at the price tag, raised policy concerns and put off implementation. Officers responding to a domestic call Sunday when Jacob Blake was shot were not equipped with technology that could give their perspective on an incident that has roiled the nation.
The public has seen video captured by a neighbor that shows an officer shooting Blake, 29, in the back several times as the Black man tried to get into a vehicle with his three children. It doesn’t show what happened before or after the shooting as body camera footage would.
The shooting prompted unrest in Kenosha. It also shined a light on Kenosha’s delays in equipping its roughly 200 police officers with body-worn cameras. The city has fallen behind many of its neighbors and similar-sized peers in doing so.
“This is a tragedy. But at least some good could come from this if this is finally the incident where Kenosha says, ‘We’ve got to get body cameras on these cops right away,’ ” said Kevin Mathewson, a former member of the common council.
Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian confirmed Monday that the city plans to buy cameras in 2022 – more than five years after he endorsed their adoption. Officers do have cameras in their squad cars, but it’s unclear whether any captured the shooting.
Mathewson pushed the city to buy cameras during his tenure on the council from 2012 to 2017, saying he saw them as a tool to remove bad police officers from the department after a series of use-of-force and misconduct incidents. Body cameras became popular nationwide as a way to improve policing after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, a Black 18-year-old, by a white officer in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri.
Mathewson recalled proposing a budget amendment to buy the equipment in early 2017 and hitting resistance from the mayor, police chief and other council members, who argued it would be unwise without clear state regulations governing cameras’ use.
By then, Kenosha had fallen behind most other midsize police departments moving forward with body camera programs. By 2016, 56% of departments with 100 to 250 officers had acquired them, and most had some officers wearing them, according to a U.S. Department of Justice study in 2018.
Kenosha’s council passed a unanimous resolution in March 2017 recommending cameras’ use, noting that the police chief, the district attorney and the mayor were in favor.
Gov. Tony Evers signed a law in February outlining body camera regulations for police departments. The law requires footage to be retained for 120 days at minimum – longer in certain cases – and recordings are generally subject to Wisconsin’s open records law.
Kenosha planned to buy the cameras this year, but funding shortfalls and technological concerns prompted the city to push that back to 2022, said Rocco LaMacchia, chairman of the council’s public safety committee.
“We have moved it back so many times,” he said. “I got a feeling this is going to move up on the ladder really fast because of what’s going on around the United States right now. Body cameras are a necessity. There’s no doubt about it.”
Of the Blake shooting, he said, “The body camera footage on this one would have told right from wrong right away.”
The city plans to purchase 175 Axon body cameras from Taser International.
Michael Bell Sr. has advocated for police changes since officers in Kenosha fatally shot his 21-year-old son, Michael Jr., in 2004. In 2014, he helped push through a law requiring outside investigation when people die in the hands of law enforcement.
“I feel that there has been no movement,” he said. “Every time they put (body camera funding) into the budget, it’s been kicked downstream.”